Everyone who loves games will eventually face the problem of having too much games in their library. For Playstation4 users, it’s as simple as a storage upgrade the same way you can with a PC. But it’s a different situation for users of the Xbox One; we can’t just pop a new SSD or a new HDD into a drive tray. Simply put, there is no drive tray. The good thing is Microsoft does allow us to install expansion storage simply by connecting an external USB3.0 storage device. Speed and storage without the need to break open your Xbox One so you get an instant upgrade.
But first off, the big question: do we go for a solid-state drive or a hard drive? Speed versus capacity? Well I wanted to check it out first-hand so I got an Transcend StoreJet 25C3N 1TB USB3.0 external hard drive as well as a Transcend SSD230S 512GB solid-state drive.
But wait a minute? How do we connect an SSD to the Xbox One if its not USB? Well we can’t but thankfully Transcend also has a solution for that in the form of the StoreJet 25CK3 which is a 2.5” drive enclosure conversion kit to turn your 2.5” drives into a portable USB3.0 storage device. The instructions are quite clear and a screwdriver is already included to make it easy for you to place your drive inside the StoreJet 25CK3 enclosure.
Both the StoreJet 25C3N and StoreJet 25CK3 come with standard USB3.0 cables which are backwards compatible with USB2.0. Luckily the Xbox One has native USB3.0 ports so we can experience unhindered speed from these drives.
Once connected, the Xbox One will prompt you to choose which function you want for your storage. I chose to format the Transcend SSD230S as a game drive and let the Transcend StoreJet 25C3N 1TB drive function as a media drive retaining its cross-compatibility with Windows PC. This allows me to move games I frequently play on the SSD and use the built-in Xbox One storage for other games while my Transcend StoreJet 25C3N 1TB drive serves as media storage for other things like videos and photos that I want to enjoy in my Xbox One setup.
With this setup I can enjoy nearly 2.5TB of storage with a partially faster drive serving as my main game drive to allow faster access to games and content. But how fast are talking about?
So as we can see from the benchmarks above on the potential transfer speeds we can get from both drive, the SSD offers 410MB/s reads and a touch around 200MB/s write speeds while our 1TB drive offers 125MB/s read and 125MB/s write peak speeds which is very comparable to normal desktop performances for such drives via their SATAIII counterpart so we’re not losing much from the USB3.0 interface here if none at all.
While it’s hard to convey actual performance without any formal benchmarks on the Xbox One, it’s easy to say that both options are feasible if you’re starting to run out of space. So if you can only choose one, here are my recommendations;
If you’re a gamer that likes to invest in a premium upgrade and would like a proverbial kick in the rear to boost your storage performance, the Transcend SSD230S with a StoreJet 25CK3 conversion enclosure will let you enjoy great speeds at attractive rates without having to bother finding a compatible enclosure.
If you want more capacity, the Transcend StoreJet 25C3N provides a highly compact and portable storage device that offers significant transfer rates whilst allowing greater amounts of data to be stored all in a very compact form factor making it easy to move around and share your game library with your friends on their Xbox One.
Whatever situation you’re facing, there’s a storage upgrade for you. Going with Transcend addressed my concerns with casual and newer gamers that don’t have much technical know-how on upgrading their Xbox One storage.
1 Comment
I plugged my 1TB WD Passport into mine.
Soon as I’ve finished copying stuff over from a 2TB Passport I’ll be plugging that into a PS4 Pro 🙂
Once I get my P. Scorpio edition One X I’ll buy another 2 or 3TB drive for that.